


Lovesong

by orphan_account



Category: Angel Sanctuary
Genre: Multi, over 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-01
Updated: 2000-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 05:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nanatsusaya follows Alexiel through her many incarnations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovesong

**Author's Note:**

> Old old old old. Not sure how old; probably older than from the year 2000, but whatever.

It's a little boy this time. He's just five years old when I find him. Face muddy, hair braided like all the other boys in the village, he runs across the expanse of his house's yard bare-footed, rags streaming after him in the wild wind of the Highlands. You would think these people washed more often.

Alexiel always wanted to be a man, didn't she?

There he goes, kicking mud at the pigs. Ah, good, his mother berates him.

I wonder how this one will turn out.

The story is always same, of course. He will love unhappily, illicitly, and die a gruesome death. It was a particularly nasty crucifixion once, they nailed her low so the hungry dogs would reach her feet while she hung dying. It's surprising how inventive humans can be when they're thinking up new ways to kill each other.

So full of life and still innocent, the chastised boy runs off down the hill towards the river and his friends. Ah... I guess they all taste innocence, happiness, freedom. It is the contrast needed for the punishment to be experienced in full force. I have a feeling this one will rejoice in violence just like she did.

Suddenly I feel distracted. The boy is not her, is he? ...But of course he is. I should feel exulted at the thought of his suffering... but... I find that I do not.

I approach the matron of the house. I have heard they need a servant here.

***

I remember her. Oh, I remember. There is something particularly hateful, particularly impressive about a beauty who cuts down her enemies with such ferocity. That same ferocity is evident in differing degrees in all these humans who have housed her soul since. And she was always so distant, so far away, looking somewhere else even when she was looking at me, talking to me, touching me. Always somewhere else. Hateful. And she mocked me, because I was helpless in her hands, and she taunted me, because she knew my origin and I did not. To be the slave of such a woman! I hated her. I hate her. And the reward for my patience is to be witness to her pain now.

If only it were by my hand...!

***

A woman this time. I watch the last stages of the drama, her inevitable, ever-repeating drama, like a dance with innumerable combinations of steps that still always end in the same position.

This human is wearing Alexiel's face as well as her soul, with all its androgynous beauty. She's 24; she is married; her husband has just found her in their marriage bed with her lover, naked. In the United States in this ignorant time when sexual love between those of the female sex is widely considered impossible he might not even understand, even with their sweaty embrace and the heat of lust in their eyes, the betrayal; yet he is not deaf to the rumours of his wife's inclinations.

This man is a brute, a simpleton. He had no business touching Alexiel in the first place. The very thought of his hands on her body makes me feel ill, although in all probability not as ill as it made her. Her lover is a wise, gentle woman, and does not deserve what happens next.

I let the curtain fall back, and slip away into the darkness of the manor's corridors, mentally preparing myself for another transition.

***

I wonder what I would do, were I her lover, if the curse didn't exist. How much more delicious, more satisfying would her suffering be, if I could have her look at me with the same trust she looks at those she falls in love with, those who will inevitably bring about her destruction? If she looked on me with love, how easy it would be to make her suffering greater. I have watched her, and learned so much about her, what hurts her, what strengthens her, what drives her to misery.

She has such a simple approach to each and every life. It's strange... Such a scheming woman, such a hateful manipulator, such a ruthless killer, and all it takes is to slip onto her side of the fence, and she will trust you with anything.

Anything at all.

***

Her corpse lays next to me on the sheets, lovely soft white flesh, young and succulent save for the bruises left by her many customers' teeth and clumsy hands. Droplets of red against the softness, the whiteness, her skin, the sheets: it is a unique sight, all this beauty contrasted with the macabre fact of her beheading.

I lift her head in between my hands to look into her lifeless eyes. Yes, the same face. Exactly the same, except that this one looks younger than the Alexiel I remember. I stroke her cheek gently. I raped this woman, and then I killed her... And yes, it was delicious.

When she looked at me, I was on her side of the fence, because she thought I was her samurai. This look... in Alexiel's eyes...

I find my hunger altered. And it worries me.

***

Innocent. Of all things, innocent. It still surprises me.

Yes... That's what she always was. Could have been. Something went wrong with her. Ah, Alexiel... you should never have grown up.

Even when you grow older, each time, you retain something of that special essence. Woman, I should hate you all the more for this; all these people who came after you, none of them were like you. They were, and yet they weren't.

Setsuna should be...

And yet, they all carry seeds of you in them. Even in this one, you could awaken in your entirety; or he could end up being a new version of you, cold and ruthless and cruel, and rejoicing in misplaced slaughter... Yet somehow I doubt it.

Ah, but he likes me. I'm on his side of the fence. It is exhilirating. Frighteningly so. I find myself worried. Don't you dare awaken in this one, Alexiel! Not yet anyway, not while he's still this... pure.

I want to meet you again. To touch your hair. To have you know, have you look at me with your own eyes, Alexiel...

But don't you dare kill Setsuna.


End file.
